A president in prison won't solve the crisis in Brazil

The Portuguese word "golpe" has a polysemy that is lost in English: It means at once coup d'etat, swindle and physical blow. One needs all three meanings to make sense of what has been happening in Brazil since Dilma Rousseff's impeachment in 2016.

Unlike the military takeover of 1964, this is not a clean break with a pre-existing institutional order, but the...read more.